“You’re nothing special, we lose every week.”
West Ham fans were in full gallows humour mode at the Amex Stadium and the above chant was heard – and applauded by the home fans – when Yasan Ayari gave Brighton the lead with his beautiful, curled shot past Alphonse Areola.
Most of the chanting by the travelling West Ham fans was about Niclas Fullkrug. The first song was about how they have a big German. The second one was about wanting him on the pitch – and the third one turned to his recent, scathing interview about on-field performances.
The fans agreed with the big German, who “says what he wants” regarding his assessment of their performances. With three goals and one scathing post-match interview to his name, the ‘Big German’ has become a cult hero.
It will have made uncomfortable listening for head coach Graham Potter, sitting not far from Fullkrug, on the benches of the club he used to manage.
“They’re entitled to sing whatever they want. That’s it,” Potter said in a fairly spiky post-match media conference.
Potter reacts to West Ham’s dramatic 3-2 defeat to his former side Brighton at the Amex Stadium
The West Ham boss introduced Fullkrug at half-time and the change appeared to have worked. It allowed Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus to operate in wide areas and gave West Ham an attacking focal point.
From the right, Bowen created two chances that saw West Ham leading 2-1 with minutes to go, only for Brighton to turn the game on its head with two late goals.
In isolation, a late defeat would have caused few headlines – but it came a week after they had conceded an injury-time equaliser to Southampton. That is one point taken where six were very much up for grabs, and West Ham would be 14th above David Moyes’ Everton, Manchester United and Spurs, who they face on Sunday.
Instead, they are 17th, three places below where Julen Lopetegui left them.
It will not be only the league positioning, chants about Germans and late goals that will be making Potter uncomfortable. He has been in the role long enough now – since the FA Cup defeat to Aston Villa in early January – to have a body of work that is worth comparing to his ill-fated predecessor.
Potter has won three (21 per cent) of his 14 games in charge. Lopetegui won six (30 per cent) of his 20 Premier League matches. Lopetegui’s team scored 24 goals in that time at 1.2 goals per game against 15 from Potter at 1.07.
It has been clear though that Potter decided to start his tenure by trying to make West Ham harder to beat. While they have lost seven of those 14 matches, which eclipses Lopetegui’s 45 per cent record, it is in the goals-conceded column where Potter has succeeded.
West Ham’s opponents have scored at an average of 1.09 since Potter’s arrival, compared to the 39 they shipped in Lopetegui’s tenure at nearly two per game. Only Southampton, Leicester and Wolves had conceded more at that point in the season – two of them are already consigned to the Championship next season.
Brighton’s winner at the weekend was the first time West Ham had conceded three since Lopetegui left, whereas under the Spaniard they shipped three or more in nine of 20 Premier League matches.
Highlights from the Premier League match between Brighton and West Ham
Those games included letting in five against Arsenal and Liverpool. The new Premier League champions also put five more past them in the Carabao Cup.
What has underpinned that defensive transformation has been a change of system to accompany Potter’s desire to make West Ham harder to beat.
The Hammers have adopted a back five, or back three with wing-backs in 10 of Potter’s 14 matches, whereas Lopetegui used it only twice in 20 matches.
Under Potter with a back five, goals conceded drops to 0.9 per match against 1.5 with a back four.
Halving their goals conceded from nearly two per game to 1.3, though, has not brought the wins and points that West Ham and their fans desire.
The stats show, perhaps surprisingly to West Ham fans, that their team appear more likely to score when playing as a five, but heat maps from the latest defeat to Brighton also hint to one of the problems they talk about.
In the first half, when operating without a striker, Bowen and Kudus often found themselves playing in the same channel, through the middle and right of West Ham’s attack.
After the introduction of Fullkrug, Kudus saw more ball on the left for West Ham, and Bowen created the goals for Kudus and Tomas Soucek on the right. Both players saw more touches in the second half.
Potter has talked about needing to find the right balance between defence and attack, and if he is to succeed, that is the solution he needs to find. A stingier defence is only part of the solution.
As Potter said post-Brighton: “There are lots of positives, but no one wants to hear positives. Doesn’t matter. [I’m] sick of talking about positives.”
Until the positives turn into points, he is likely to continue to hear the uncomfortable chants about a big German.
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